Texas on the Potomac is pleased to share some of the best national political content from the Texas Tribune. Today, we offer you a piece by the Trib’s versatile Reeve Hamilton.

Waco-area resident and rock star Ted Nugent announced today on Twitter that he was endorsing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination. But he said things would be different if Texas Gov. Rick Perry had run a different campaign.

“If the real Rick Perry had been at those debates, he would still be in the race,” Nugent told the Tribune Friday. “It is my firm belief that Rick Perry would have [made] and would make the best president we could choose.”

Perry’s poll numbers plummeted following a string of poor debate performances and public gaffes, and he dropped out in January for what Nugent called “understandable” reasons.

“Whatever occurred at those early debates that caused the real Rick Perry to take a back seat to whoever that was literally caused my wife to cry,” Nugent said. “We thought, ‘Has he been advised by idiots?’ To this day, we still don’t know what happened.”